Posted by Gary on January 20, 1999 at 02:41:30:
In Reply to: Re: A new AR film? posted by John Wilson Smith on December 06, 1998 at 17:04:28:
I have to agree with the people who oppose making a film out of Arthur Ransome's books. One thing about a book-- any book-- is that your own imagination forms the image of what the people look and sound like. As you get older or reread the book, your perception of the sights and sounds may change. For example, when I originally read AR's books as a child, they spurred me to do library research to figure out what the boats looked like, and where the stories took place. Later on, when I reread the stories as an adult, I noticed other details. For example, although the characters are out camping and hiking, the girls wear generally wear dresses and the boys wear ties. Putting the stories on video makes everything too easy, and my mental image of the settings and characters would have been static. You immediately see what the characters look and sound like and it becomes significantly less personal. Another example of this is "Winnie-the-Pooh." I read Milne's books as a child and had formed a vision of what the characters sounded like (the books were illustrated, so looks weren't in question.) Along comes Disney, who redesigns the appearance of the characters and adds voices. My wife, who is younger than I, grew up on the Disney version. She, like many others, can't envision a different voice for the characters. I'm just bothered that by making something into a video, someone can create a "correct" view of a fictional story.